Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Hansard source

I want to thank the member for Moreton for allowing me to stand up at this particular time. I acknowledge you, Deputy Speaker Broadbent, and those who have spoken in this debate, because the Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (2015 Budget Measures) Bill 2015 is an important piece of legislation. As a former minister for veterans' affairs I know only too well how important this legislation is to veterans and the veterans community and, most particularly, how important one aspect of it is to the families of a small number of Vietnam vets who never came home and who currently lie buried in a cemetery off Australia's shores. As a result of this legislation their families will be able to have their bodies repatriated back to the country.

The bill before us actually represents a modest improvement to entitlements of, and services to, Australian veterans. The first schedule of the bill will effect changes that will enhance the Veterans' Vocational Rehabilitation Scheme, the VVRS, under the Veterans' Entitlements Act. This will mean that an amount equivalent to the permissible earnings for special and intermediate recipients will be disregarded for VVRS participants, when determining whether the person's reduced daily pension amount should be increased, and it will give them the same benefit from permissible earnings as is received by a non-participant of the VVRS. The enhancements to the scheme will also expand the range of services to include medical management and psychological services. The changes will also result in certain special and intermediate rate disability pensioners having a smoother step down in disability pension whilst in the scheme and will encourage veterans to remain or continue in the workforce.

Schedule 2 of the bill will streamline the appeals process into a single pathway for reconsideration or review of an original determination under chapter 8 of the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act. This amendment has the support of ex-service organisations and I commend the government for putting it in. What it will do is change the appeal process to a single path, which will avoid the complexities that claimants currently face relating to different time limits for the submission of appeals, different times taken to determine the review, the choice they make impacting on the entitlements to legal aid and the awarding of costs for appeals that progress to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

I will come to schedule 3 in a moment, which I think is of most interest for the broader community, because it reflects the desire to expand the war graves regulation-making power under the Defence Act 1903 to include graves of service dependants buried at Terendak Military Cemetery in Malaysia. Before I come to that, I just want to make it very clear that these first two schedules, although minor, are very important. They reflect the ongoing need to monitor what services we are providing to our veteran community and to make sure that they understand our desire—that is, our collective desire across the parliament—to make sure their needs and interests are being properly looked after. We need to bear in mind, in terms of entitlements under the veterans affairs legislation, that we are, of course, talking about not only veterans but also veterans' families. I do not think veteran's families are often given proper credit for the support they provide to their veteran partners, fathers, mothers or whatever relationship they might have. This is true not only when they have transitioned out of the defence forces but also, most particularly, whilst they are in service.

We know that the transition process out of the defence forces for many is quite difficult. It is quite difficult because they have spent any number of years involved in very regulated activity, involved in serving this country, often doing very intense work, very difficult and very dangerous work, and some find the transition out of the defence forces more difficult than others. Indeed, some will leave in such a way as not wanting to continue any association with the uniforms they have left behind and will try to get as much separation as possible as quickly as possible. But sometimes these particular people are the ones most in need of assistance over time. We need to make sure, whatever we do in this space, that any veteran—regardless of who they are or where they are—know that there are services available to assist them. This is particularly true for younger serving veterans and younger post-service veterans, who have transitioned out of the Defence Force. It is particular true for them, because we do not want to end up making the mistakes we made it in the past—and we will be talking about the Vietnam vets in a moment—with the Vietnam vets cohort, where we did not recognise the trauma associated with stress from service and combat, and the mental health issues that arose directly as a result of that service. So we need to make sure the transition space is being properly looked at and that people understand that the whole panoply and suite of services that they require access to is available to them.

I commend the Department of Veterans' Affairs for providing on-base advisory services and I commend the various arms of the defence forces for their continuing work in that space working closely with the Department of Veterans' Affairs to try and make that transition as seamless as possible. And I thank those workers in the Department of Veterans' Affairs for the work they do on our behalf.

I now want to address the issue of the potential repatriation of the Australian is to remain buried at Terendak Military Cemetery in Malaysia. Of the 521 Australians killed in the Vietnam War, 496 were repatriated to Australia with full military honours. There are 24 Australian servicemen buried at Terendak, Malaysia and one at Kranji War Cemetery in Singapore. These 25 soldiers are the only remaining Australian servicemen killed during the Vietnam War who have not been returned to their families for burial. During the early days of the Vietnam War families would have their son's body sent home only if their next of kin or benefactor was willing and able to pay 500 pounds for their repatriation to Australia. If families could not afford this, the soldier would be buried at Terendak, Malaysia.

In January 1966, the Australian government resolved that all soldiers killed in Vietnam were to be returned to Australia at the expense of the Commonwealth. Labor supports the offer that will be made with the passage of this legislation to repatriate the remains of deceased Vietnam veterans buried at Terendak Military Cemetery in Malaysia and Kranji War Cemetery in Singapore if requested to do so by the families of those deceased members.. The remains of eight service dependants who accompanied veterans serving in Malaysia are also buried in the Terendak Military Cemetery and, kindly and quite rightly, the government has also offered to repatriate these remains if requested to do so by the families.

Contrary to the inane comments made by the member for Solomon in the debate here last week, in my own electorate of I have held meetings with the Vice President of the VVAA NT Bob Shewring and Mr Neil Bond, the nephew of Reg Hillier, the only Territorian killed in the Vietnam War, who is currently buried in Terendak, Malaysia. These meetings lead to Labor committing to 'bringing them home', and we welcome the federal government's commitment to do just that. I found the comments of the member for Solomon not only wrong but also downright insulting not only to me but to those people who wanted their families brought home.

I would like to acknowledge the work of the VVAA NT. In particular ,I thank Bob Shewring—he is an old mate of mine; he and I worked together many years ago at Fannie Bay jail—and Sue McCallum, whose tireless work on this project has meant that the families of these men will have the opportunity to at last bring their sons home. Two nights ago in Darwin, after the Vietnam Veterans Day ceremony at the cenotaph, Keith Payne VC AM spoke at a function explaining the importance of 'bringing them home' to our Vietnam vets. It will be another step in healing the wounds of that dreadful war. At the end of the Vietnam War, six Australians were among the 2,338 people then listed as missing in action. Four Australian Army soldiers and two Royal Australian Air Force were classified as 'missing in action', in four separate incidents, with all six presumed to have been killed in action. Following the war, the remains of the servicemen were recovered and repatriated to Australia. As of 30 July 2009, no Australian servicemen remain missing in action from the Vietnam War. I am really very pleased with that outcome.

I was involved in aspects of bringing home some of those soldiers and undertaking to have searches undertaken for the remains of others. I was particularly engaged with the retrieval of the body of Private David John Elkington Fisher, who was a national serviceman serving with 3 Squadron, Special Air Service Regiment. On 27 September 1969 he was part of an SAS patrol which was contacted by several parties of Vietcong in the Cam My district about 35 kilometres north-east of the 1st Australian Task Force base at Nui Dat. During a 'hot extraction' by a RAAF helicopter, Private Fisher fell about 30 metres into dense jungle from a rope attached to the helicopter. He was believed to have been killed and searches failed to recover his body. In August 2008, the Australian Defence Force reported that the possible location of Private Fisher's body had been identified. At that time, as the Minister for Defence Science and Personnel, I was able to authorise a search. On 11 September 2008, the Australian Defence Force advised that the remains found as part of the investigation had been positively identified as Private Fisher's and that preparations were underway to return the fallen soldier with full military honours. It is now known that Private Fisher died as a result of the fall and was hastily buried by enemy soldiers who discovered his body. He was brought back to Australia by a special federal government and Defence Force team in 2008, which I was proud to be part of along with his old comrades from the SAS. I travelled to Hanoi to formally receive Private Fisher's remains. I also attended a service at Richmond Air Force Base near Sydney to welcome the Hercules aircraft carrying David Fisher's coffin. It was a very emotional and moving ceremony inside a hangar with people acknowledging and giving thanks for his service and honouring his contribution. And then we had a burial service on the North Shore of Sydney—I forget the name of the cemetery. It was raining like hell but it was a magnificent ceremony. It really paid Private Fisher the respect he was finally due.

There have been other cases. Pilot Officer Robert Charles Carver and Flying Officer Michael Patrick John Herbert, of No. 2 Squadron RAAF, were both career Air Force officers. They were finally recovered.

Mr Billson interjecting—

The minister at the table says there were two others whom he was responsible for bringing back during his time as the minister. I thank him for his work. Lance Corporal John Francis Gillespie was a helicopter medic with the 8th Field Ambulance. His body could not be recovered. We need to be fully cognisant of the sacrifices that were made by these great men during the Second World War on our behalf. I am so pleased that this legislation will allow us to bring home those final small number of men who remain buried at Terendak cemetery in Malaysia.

Last Saturday I was pleased to attend a blessing of a cenotaph at Humpty Doo, located in my electorate. Present were the venerable Ian McDonald, who took the service; Vietnam vets, many from the Patriots motorcycle club; the former mayor, Mary Walshe, who was involved with the cenotaph from its early days; local MLA, Kezia Purick; and other members of the local community. This was a very small but symbolic occasion where we recognised again the importance of service to this great country of ours. This small ceremony at Humpty Doo reinforced our commitment to making sure we remember always the sacrifices made by those who serve.

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